Oasis
by MarbleGlove
Summary: A Jedi youngling, aged out of the crèche, joins the AgriCorps… twice. First by being sent, then by choosing to stay.


**Summary** : A Jedi youngling, aged out of the crèche, joins the AgriCorps… twice. First by being sent, then by choosing to stay.

A/N: Thanks to my wonderful sister for her beta-reading!

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 **Oasis**

* * *

"This is a demonstration," the Agriculturist said. "So pay attention."

"Of course, Sir." The recent recruit tried to be respectful but it was hard. He was thirteen and a failure and cast out of the Jedi Temple to spend the rest of his days as part of the AgriCorps.

He'd waited all of his life for someone to ask him to be their apprentice, and no one had. When he'd aged out of the Jedi crèche, he'd been sent to the Jedi AgriCorps like all the other washouts. The Jedi Masters always tried to make it sound like it was a fine life, a nice relaxing life without the hardships of being a Knight, like that was supposed to be an advantage. At least the instructors in the crèche knew that the younglings craved the difficult tasks of Jedi. They always used the AgriCorp as a threat: if you weren't good enough, if you didn't try hard enough, then you'd be sent to AgriCorp to be a farmer. Apparently he hadn't been good enough, no matter how hard he'd tried.

So he went where he was sent, planning to Force-feed plants, or whatever, for a couple of weeks until he had a better handle on his disappointment and a viable plan for his future. Because even though he knew that farming was a respectable livelihood, and everyone needed to eat, it wasn't the life he wanted. He was a failed Jedi, but surely there still had to be something he could do. So he'd figure out his options and then take off. But he had barely arrived at the central AgriCorps headquarters when this particular Agriculturist's ship had arrived and she'd collected him with a terse, "You're assigned to me."

She was tall and severe-looking and once on the ship, she'd told him, "For now, your task is to help the refugee family I'm rehoming. You'll help with the farmland rehabilitation when we land. After that, we'll discuss your future."

He'd barely seen her since, despite it not being a large ship. He'd spent his days helping and learning about the refugee family. It was probably supposed to be a lesson that others had it worse then he did. At least he had a home. Instead, it just made him even more upset that he'd lost any chance to be a Jedi Knight with the power to _really_ help them.

The refugee family hadn't originally been a family. They were the last twenty rescues from a slave ship, the ones who had nowhere to return to. They'd formed their own family from the shared trauma of losing everything and having nothing and nowhere. They'd petitioned to be treated as a family and given a homestead. They'd been at the AgriCorps headquarters for two years, waiting for an opening while doing odd jobs on the station. When they finally reached the head of the line, they were so excited to get their own place. They even thanked him for it. They seemed to think he was responsible for it. They insisted that he'd always have a place with them, a place to call home and be with family.

He explained that he wasn't responsible for any of this: he'd still been in the Jedi crèche when they were rescued from slavers, and was fresh off the transport when their current trip was planned.

"We've been waiting for you to age out," one of the younger ones told him. "I picked you. We're not supposed to, because the higher-ups say it creates bitterness then, when a Jedi master picks a padawan, and that's supposed to be a joyful experience. But I thought that maybe if I picked you, and thought about it really hard into the Force, the Jedi Masters would know that you were already picked and leave you alone."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Didn't she realize that not being picked by a Jedi master was a failure, that aging out was a failure?

One of the older refugees winced at what she must have seen on his face and hushed the younger one. "You shouldn't say things like that, dear. We can be happy he joined the AgriCorps, but he's still unhappy about it. And that's fine," she rushed to reassure him. "But I want you to know that we are happy you're here!"

And he was left so confused that he couldn't even be bitter as he'd been over the past year when his birthday approached and then passed.

He'd asked one of the others, and she'd been more specific: "None of us are force-sensitive, but from what we've heard, every new force-sensitive recruit to the AgriCorps gets a demonstration as the first lesson. In the demonstrations, special farms are established on an isolated planet, and we asked for one of those farms. So we'll get the fruits of your first labors. Do you see the pun I just made? The fruits, because we're getting a farm!"

He'd decided to avoid asking anything more at that point, and went back to reading manuals for farming equipment and texts on fruit tree biology. If there was supposed to be some other lesson in all of this, he'd wait for the Agriculturist to teach it herself, if she ever got time to deal with him.

He didn't have high expectations for that.

Maybe this was to be his future. He'd just join a group of refugees and be placed like anyone else, except that he skipped the long wait, going directly to farming with no education beyond the theoretical biology that had been covered in temple schooling.

But when the ship finally landed, it was on some force-forsaken planet that appeared to be made entirely of hard volcanic rock. He didn't want to make waves, but if they left that family here, he'd do his best to report it as a crime to the Jedi High Council, because it would be murder.

Nothing could survive here, no matter what supplies they brought. He'd seen the farming equipment and the housing materials. They were intended for a remote homestead, but on a hospitable planet, not this place of hard devastation.

The refugees didn't seem upset though, when they'd first gone out to explore, and now they all sat together for meditation on the hard ground: the refugees, the Agriculturist, and him.

"We will meditation. Open yourself up to the living force, all of you." The Agriculturist was abrupt and though she spoke to everyone, she looked directly at him.

He opened himself up to the Force, as he'd been taught to since infancy.

He would pay attention.

For the first half hour, it was like any meditation, their breaths the only sounds.

Then the Agriculturist spoke softly, not breaking the meditation but guiding it. "Feel the sun on your skin. It is welcoming you to the planet. It welcomes all who come here. Every day it will rise and welcome you anew. Thank the sun for its welcome."

"Thank you, Sun," the refugees murmured and he did too. The sun did feel nice on his skin. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd truly felt a sun's light. The temple at Coruscant had outdoor courtyards but he had never given them much attention. And he hadn't been outside since he'd left there.

"Feel the air on your face. Breathe it in. And breathe it out. The air that you breathe in has come from far away. The air that you breathe out will travel even further. You are a way-station for the air that you breathe."

He breathed.

The Agriculturist spoke again. "Feel the land beneath you. It is the hard cold stone left behind by the wild heat of a volcano. It has been here for a very long time. It has been itself for so long, but we will ask it to change for us. Thank the stone for it's perseverance and thank it for its willingness to change."

What? He thought. It's stone. It cannot just become farmland. It was nearly enough to pull him out of the meditation. But the master's force signature unfolded before his senses, wrapping around them all, and then expanding outwards. It pulled him right back down into a trance. He could feel the space: the land, the air, and the sense of water below.

The Agriculturist spoke, "Feel the water, how it passes from far to near to far again. It passes us by. Let us invite it up."

He felt the force sink into the unground river, far below: the Agriculturist's force signature entwined with his own and with that of the twenty refugees who were not force-sensitive at all, and yet were creatures of the Force as much as any living being. Their Force called to the water and the water answered. It rose and wore away at the rock above it, and rose again, coming at their invitation.

The Agriculturist said, "Let us invite the water to greet the air above."

And the water rose and the stone cracked and cracked again and water bubbled forth, cold from the ground and dirty from the work of arriving.

"Let us great the water," the Agriculturist said, and touched the water bubbling up in the center of their circle. They all leaned forward and the younger children giggled delightedly, one of them even leaping up and having to be pulled back by one of the adults.

"Thank you, water!" the children shouted. "Water! Thanks!"

"Thank you, water." The adults spoke more respectfully and solemnly, but he could still hear the exuberant joy underneath it.

The Agriculturist smiled and he vaguely realized that he'd never seen her do that before. "Let us give the water space so that it knows it is welcome to have a home here."

Still half entranced with the feeling of the Force, he crawled his way back from the widening pool of water rimmed by an expanding sandy beach. He retreated ten meters, then twenty, then thirty. At this distance, he couldn't hear anything but the burbling water, which was still dark and muddy from the stone, but he thought might be beginning to clear.

If he hadn't been so deep into the Force, he wouldn't have heard the Agriculturist when she spoke again. "The water is like the air. It comes from far away. It will travel ever further. But now it is here. This water is here, and we welcome it for as long as it stays. We wish it well on its journey. We are a way-station for the water."

This use of the Force was like nothing he'd ever heard of before. It was destructive but without anger, warm but without any burn. It was murky and carried so much desire and determination and passion with it, but it was not dark. It was like the silt-stained waters, he thought. It was light and clear and pure, even if it didn't look like it.

"Let the sun greet the water," the Agriculturist spoke again, and he could feel it. He could feel the sun greeting the water where it touched the sand and both sun and water finding seeds there to grow.

He put his hands to the ground and felt the gritty sand, and felt it tremble even as the Force shifted the sand, and he could sense the green growth.

The Agriculturist chanted words that echoed unnervingly in his bones:  
"The sun and the water,  
The water and the earth,  
The earth and the sun.  
They greet one another  
Together they grow life. "

"They grow life," he murmured in echo and felt the refugees do the same. "They grow life."

And life grew, and it grew, and he could feel the roots find purchase and hold the sand together even as they broke the rock apart.

He felt it and it didn't feel light and it didn't feel dark. It felt like balance. It felt like the Force itself was a balancing act of breaking and creating and growing and destroying, and it was all too much. He finally wrenched himself away from the Agriculturist's meditation, pulled himself back into his own body, and collapsed onto the ground and coughed at the air and shivered at the sun and dry heaved as if there was something in him that needed to come out, but there was nothing left to give.

He was on the edge of an oasis in the middle of solid rock.

The oasis must be more than 100 meters across with a deep pool of water in its center and there was grass and vines and even a few young trees, and flowers. All the flowers.

He struggled to rise.

He half-ran and half-staggered to the Agriculturist, who had been only a few meters from him and was now more than 100 meters away.

When he neared her, she opened her eyes and smiled. "Welcome to the Jedi AgriCorps, young initiate. This is a demonstration of what we do here."

He collapsed.

The refugee family would farm this oasis. They had a home. She had created a home for them. How was that even possible? "Where did the plants come from? The sun and the water and the ground and the air were all here. But the plants can't be here. How?"

He was panting and his eyes were too wide and he felt both out of control and completely drained. The Agriculturist didn't seem to mind his disarray, though.

"The plants are a gift from the previous family settled on this planet. The river flows underground. Three days ago, they put the seeds into their pool of water and watched them flow underground. They came with the water. A present for their new neighbors."

"This is like nothing that the crèche ever taught. Nothing. Anything like it would have been banned!"

"The Jedi Knights Council and the Service Corps approach the Force very differently."

"This is, this is, this can't be…"

"Do you know why initiates age out of the Jedi temple at thirteen?"

"Because we're too old to be taught after then." He was too overwhelmed to feel his usual bitterness at the question or answer.

"No. The Knights Council argued that since they seek and find force-sensitive children, and maintain the crèches, they should get a monopoly on the students. For thirteen years, they get to choose from the younglings, and we allow them to pick their favored few. But they can only train so many, with their one-teacher-one-padawan rule. Then, at thirteen years of age, we of the Service Corps get you. We grab you with all hands and keep you as long as you are willing to be kept. If you want to help people, if you want to improve lives and worlds, then stay with the AgriCorps. You will help more people and more planets than any Jedi Knight."

"You'll teach me how to do this?" It was amazing. As drained as he was, and as overwhelmed by what he had seen, he was beginning to have hope. If he could do this, if he could make farmland out of solid stone, then maybe he could still help people.

"Yes." She was smiling at him and she didn't look nearly as severe as he'd originally thought.

"Are there a lot of refugee families waiting for homes? Will we rehome them all?"

And her smile was gone and she was grim again, "yes, there are a lot of refugees, around the galaxy, and no, we will not rehome them all."

"But, you can do this!" He wanted to shake her. They had the opportunity to help people. _He_ had the opportunity to help people. He needed to take it! He needed her to let him take it.

"Our next stop will be in the Vykos system. One of their planets is going through a devastating climate shift and their entire agricultural system is dying. Thousands of people starve to death every day."

"We need to get there immediately!" As drained as he felt, he also felt jittery with the need to do something. He needed to accomplish something. He had helped turn solid rock into arable farmland: he could do anything! He would do everything!

The Agriculturist ignored his interjection. "Tomorrow, we'll celebrate with this family, and wish them well and make sure their house is set up. We'll go to Vykos the day after."

"But people are dying!"

"Yes, they are. There are actually three planets in my region that are currently experiencing devastating ecological failures in ways that we can help to mitigate. People are dying on each of them. By going to Vykos, I am choosing not to go to Ord Biniir or Hethar."

The previously warm sun and gentle breeze now felt cold and empty. He looked into the Agriculturist's impassive face as she looked down at him. His excitement drained away. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need to know."

"Why?" He felt like such a child with that plaintive question, but he had to ask. Why did she have to take the joy out of it all?

"We rehabilitate land, but generally on a scale so large that you won't see it with your bare eyes, and can only sense it over time. Everything you learn will be larger and slower and a hundred times more important. This is a rare case of a planet lost to a single cataclysmic event, and rehabilitating it just means breaking up stone already filled with nutrients, shifting rivers of clean water, and growing fresh plants. It's satisfying in its simplicity, which is why we use it for the demonstrations. For most planets, we must filter toxins out of soil and add nutrients in, and teach ecology maintenance to worn-down and starving populations who want only another day's meal. Normal work is rough, draining effort." She spoke as if today had not completely exhausted him.

He had trouble imagining being more drained than this. But maybe he could imagine it: how much wearier he'd be if he couldn't see any tangible results.

"This farm here, it is a delight and a joy to make, but it also delayed my response to that famine by a full ten-day. In a year, I could make maybe a hundred farms on just this one specific planet. But in that same year, with that same effort, I can help dozens of planets, rehabilitate billions of acres, and help millions of families."

"Then why create this farm at all!"

"Because this is a demonstration for you. You probably won't see anything like this again until you can do it yourself, if you so choose to do so. But you needed to see it once."

"I didn't need it to cost lives!" He wasn't worth it.

"Even at the cost of lives, training you right is worth it." The Agriculturist's eyes weren't kind, but he wouldn't have believed her if she'd said that with kindness. He wasn't sure he believed her anyway, but he listened. "There are three planets currently suffering and I can only go to one at a time. If I can get you trained, then you'll be another Agriculturist who can respond. In ten years, when you're ready to be on your own, we'll be able to pick two disasters to respond to immediately, rather than picking just one. Do you understand that we need you?"

And he found himself making a jerky nod. Yes, he could understand that. It wasn't about him, not really, it was about what he might be able to do. And that was oddly reassuring. He didn't need to be a success right now, he just needed to work hard and be successful later.

"That is the second lesson here: you must always balance immediate need against future need. No matter how bad the starvation is now, you eat the seeds needed to grow future food. You are the seed of the future. And we have been waiting on you since you were eight, for five long years, hoping against hope that no Jedi Master plucks you for their own before we can plant you and watch you grow to save worlds."

"Oh." He felt overwhelmed. He had been angry at the universe for not giving him meaningful work. Now he felt like he might be crushed under the burden of what it had given him.

The Agriculturist's eyes finally softened. "Don't look like that. You are still a youngling. It's not on you to feed the universe just yet. That will come in time, but for now, watch and learn."

"Are we really going to stay here for another whole day?"

"Yes. A job is not done until it is completed, and part of that is ensuring this family is settled and feted. Celebrate what victories we achieve with the what people we are able to help, because there is always more need than assistance available and failures will be heart-breaking. The third lesson is this: you cannot allow yourself to burn out." She smiled, but with a wryness like maybe she didn't find it funny at all, "There is too much to do to allow ourselves to burn out."

"Oh." That was not a reassuring thought. He had been so desperate to be a knight that he had thought of just leaving the Jedi completely when he wasn't chosen. Why bother with the consolation of the service corps if he couldn't be a knight? It was a little frightening to find out that the service corps was even more desperate for him.

"And so now we come to my question for you."

"What question?"

"You came to the AgriCorps, not expecting to stay for long."

He flushed and looked down. Yeah. He had thought they were a waste. He hadn't known!

She must have heard his thoughts, or at least sensed them, because she shrugged and said, "You didn't know."

"Yeah." He whispered his agreement.

"So this was your introduction to AgriCorps. And now I ask the question: will you be my apprentice here?"

He had to gulp back all the things that wanted to burst out of him when finally asked that question. It wasn't where or when or from whom he had expected, but after everything he had seen today, he knew it was so much better than what he would have gotten elsewhere.

He finally managed to speak. "Yes. Yes, please. Thank you. Yes!"

She smiled. "Thank _you_." And then, just as quickly the smile was gone again. "Come now, we've got work to do."


End file.
